Is bounce rate that much important?

[deepsand]

In my view in some stances it does affect ranking factor... Like if a user hit a search phrase in Google. Thereafter the user click through a web search result of Google and quickly in a second or two returns back to Google search page to check for other search results for what he was looking for. It gives Google some signal that the concerned website is not useful for a particular kind(user looking for information, product etc.) of user and if it determines it is of no use to any set of users than it will simply remove the website or decrease it rankings after re-analyzing the said website.

Google I don't think use Google Analytics data of any website, but he(google ) is free to use stats coming from its own search results interaction with user to improve its user experience.

This has already been well covered, with the salient point being that the observable ping-pong rate re. SERP visitors' behavior is:

• Not the same as true bounce rate;
• Is vulnerable to being manipulated; and, is thus
• Suitable only for use in personalized search results.

[aksharadeoll]

If your website has a high bounce rate, Google penalties are not your only problem. Since Google wants to provide the best

results to a searcher's query, bounce rate is going to be a factor. But, you need to ask yourself, "Why is the bounce rate

so high?". Are you targeting the wrong phrases, and when people get to your site, they immediately discover you are not what

they are looking for? Could the website itself be poorly designed, and a visitor's first impression is not favorable?

Whether or not Google is penalizing you, you need to find out why the bounce rate is so high, and get it fixed.

[SteveGerencser]

If your website has a high bounce rate, Google penalties are not your only problem. Since Google wants to provide the best

results to a searcher's query, bounce rate is going to be a factor. But, you need to ask yourself, "Why is the bounce rate

so high?".

First, there are NO Google penalties for a high bounce rate. NONE.

2nd, I know of many sites with a 'high bounce rate' that both rank #1 and serve exactly what the searcher was looking for in less than 30 seconds so that they may leave and do something else.

[Dany87]

If you have a content website like a blog, I think bounce rate is less important if your "time spent on the website" factor is good, because it means they are reading your stuff. Bounce rate is more important for static website in my opinion.

[saovietxulynuoc]

That is much too general a conclusion. Say for example you type in a question and the top search result is a page in Wikipedia. You go there, and get all the information you need, and then leave. That is a bounce but it does not mean that the page is poor, in fact it means exactly the opposite. The page is good because it has given you the answer to your question.
When looking at the bounce rate in Google Analytics, the figure given is the average for your site. But you should look at results for the individual pages before drawing any conclusions.

May be you are right but I think when your site is good, useful readers will want to take more time to get information, they will not go out, they want to discover any other interesting.
In my onpinion, high bound rate may be:
- Conten is poor, not attractive and useful
- Keywords you choose are not represent for your site, so readers come to your site and don't find useful information they need through keywords they got by searching or other sources

[weegillis]

What would the bounce rate be for Google, or any SERP, for that matter? Searching long tail often turns enough information right in the results to get a cursory answer for a query. Often no links get followed, but a new search is started.

When a page is fairly high in the SERPs for a phrase, chances are the information we want is right there in the page. Like @ozsubasi suggests, we read, we go. Minute or two tops. Looks like a bounce, but it was a quality result. It has been restated above, that bounce rate is not an accurate metric, as it reveals almost nothing definitive. Just because a user leaves your site, doesn't mean they won't return, or bookmark it, or even send links through e-mail or social media. Personally, I rarely 'surf' or 'browse.' There's no time.

[deepsand]

If you have a content website like a blog, I think bounce rate is less important if your "time spent on the website" factor is good, because it means they are reading your stuff. Bounce rate is more important for static website in my opinion.

A blog page can be static; and, a non-blog page can be quite dynamic.

There is no correlation between how often a page's content is changed and it's bounce rate.

[deepsand]

If your website has a high bounce rate, Google penalties are not your only problem. Since Google wants to provide the best results to a searcher's query, ...

... bounce rate is not going to be a factor.

Google has no access to your server logs; therefore, it has no direct way of gathering on-site activity data for any site.

And, while it can acquire some data from those who use Google Analytics (GA), such is but a very small sample of the totality of sites, so that it is useless as a general metric. (In fact, Google has made it quite clear that GA data are not used for SERP purposes.)

The only thing that Google can directly and fully monitor is activity on its own site(s). But, even that is fraught with problems.

Suppose, for example, that it tried to use something similar to bounce rate, the SERP ping-pong rate, the rate at which a user bounces back and forth between the SERP page and pages listed there. Now consider that user A left-clicks on a listing, then Backspaces to the SERP page, then left-clicks on another listing, then Backspaces again, etc. User B, however. right-clicks on selected listings, opening each in a new tab, so that he's not ping-ponging.

Since the two types of users behavior are such that the results cannot meaningfully combined, they are useless a a general metric. At best, SERP ping-pong rate might be useful as a metric for personalized search results only.

[HTMLBasicTutor]

If you have a content website like a blog, I think bounce rate is less important if your "time spent on the website" factor is good, because it means they are reading your stuff. Bounce rate is more important for static website in my opinion.

I can see your point if the blog:
-is one of those ones that posts pictures, short posts, jokes, stuff like that where it only takes a few seconds to "read" the post.
-is in the StumbleUpon cycle of things. I am guilty of "bouncing" off a page when Stumbling if the page was miscategorized, too much advertising, too big of a header or other "stuff" above the fold.

And you could be right about a static site. Generally a "static" site is built for information you want the person to read (e.g. educational/informational) or you want them to purchase something.

- - - Updated - - -

Danny Sullivan‏@dannysullivan

"Google doesn't use bounce rate" @mattcutts told @tomschmitz yesterday, tom says ‪#smx‬ ‪#11c

2:04 PM - 5 Jun 12 Danny Sullivan's tweet

And Chris Crum wrote about this on WebProNews: Matt Cutts: Google Doesn’t Use Bounce Rate

So no more spreading that myth.